Judging from this blog entry's title - one I'm writing because Eena was looking for my film review, and I pretty much stopped doing those - I should. You have a guy who dresses up as the Joker, only with a balaclava and a bulletproof vest, entering a midnight screening and shooting indiscriminately. How else do you explain that?

No, I don't mean to be derisive. Why should I? I am a geek myself, or something. But the most drastic Batman-related thing I've done lately is reserve seats for last night's last full show, and upon getting five good seats, yelling to myself, "suck it, Alabang!" Of course, there was the complication of having to get a sixth seat for my cousin, which meant attempting to reserve the night before. Surprisingly, it was successful.

I took that sixth seat. It's on the row behind the first batch of seats I reserved, and it's almost in the middle, which means I've nothing to complain about.

What I'm complaining about, though, is the couple who sat on the seats to my right. They were just too cuddly. The guy was seated immediately beside me, but you just know that you're seated beside two people when there's supposed to be one. His girlfriend was leaning towards him, pretty much lying on his chest, and I swear they're this close to making out.

Not-so-momentary please-don't-show-off-your-love-to-each-other-damn-it distraction aside, I quite enjoyed The Dark Knight Rises. Turns out I'm quite a fan of Christopher Nolan: I like the way he weaves through stories in such a nippy yet gritty manner, the way he did with Inception, the way he did with my favorite Nolan film, The Prestige. The dude's vision is still all over his third Batman film, thankfully in pure form.

Thing is, I probably wanted the story to be diluted a bit. This being the conclusion (and one last chance to tie every loose end together), it seems the film tried to be big, and failed at some parts. Say, the whole thing about Bane: I get the need for exposition, but it felt there was just too much to swallow that it looks like nothing was going on, despite Nolan's cut-cut-cut style.

Of course, the last hour of the film - and especially that closing montage - made up for it. That's where the sweeping feel of the whole series worked the best.

And yet I did not leave the cinema in awe. It wasn't the world's bestest movie everrrrrr, as some would want you to think - although credit goes to Michael Caine (as always), Gary Oldman (as always), and, of all things, Anne Hathaway's (or was it her stunt double's?) distracting butt when she rides the Batpod. I know that sounds wrong. Maybe not to Abed, I don't know.

But some of the people in the theater probably felt that it is the world's bestest movie everrrrrr. The guy to my left squirmed a lot throughout the movie, and as the final minutes clocked in, was pretty much trying to hold his tears. I get being moved by the film, but not the whole... okay, I will not spoil.

The Dark Knight Rises did deserve the applause at the end of the screening - or maybe it's because nobody came in and shot at us - but, well, it was just meh. Maybe it's me being a bit more familiar with Nolan's style and cinematographer Wally Pfister's aesthetic. Maybe it's me feeling a bit muddled. But The Dark Knight Rises was just, you know, meh. Fanboys be damned.